I'm looking forward to some scenes reminiscent of those taking place in or around lifts/elevators/vertical-people-carriers at the end of the 1988 movie "Working Girl" - only with the emphasis more on cell animation that on advertising.

Also, if you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and listen to the roundtable discussion with Mathis and the Scientific American staffers. It's very entertaining. Mathis comes across as a ignorant, vile rube.

There is nothing so tiresome as an argument that no one will ever concede--particularly if the participants don't seem to know it. And there's no place the fighting is growing more pointless than in the ongoing smackdown between evolutionists and advocates of intelligent design--the theory that the emergence of life must have been guided by a sentient planner.

The latest shot is being fired by economist, actor and game-show host Ben Stein, with his documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, due out April 18. Stein nominally set out to make the case that academics who write about evolution are being muzzled or denied tenure if they so much as nod in the direction of intelligent design. It's impossible to know from the handful of examples he cites how widespread the problem is, but if there's anything to it at all, it's a matter well worth exposing.

The man made famous by Ferris Bueller, however, quickly wades into waters far too deep for him. He makes all the usual mistakes nonscientists make whenever they try to take down evolution, asking, for example, how something as complex as a living cell could have possibly arisen whole from the earth's primordial soup. The answer is it couldn't--and it didn't. Organic chemicals needed eons of stirring and slow cooking before they could produce compounds that could begin to lead to a living thing. More dishonestly, Stein employs the common dodge of enumerating all the admittedly unanswered questions in evolutionary theory and using this to refute the whole idea. But all scientific knowledge is built this way. A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish.

It's in the film's final third that it runs entirely off the rails as Stein argues that there is a clear line from Darwinism to euthanasia, abortion, eugenics and--wait for it--Nazism. Theories of natural selection, it's claimed, were a necessary if not sufficient condition for Hitler's killing machine to get started. The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another is the simple fact of being human. We've always been a lustily fratricidal species, one that needed no Charles Darwin to goad us into millenniums of self-slaughter.

In fairness to Stein, his opponents have hardly covered themselves in glory. Evolutionary biologists and social commentators have lately taken to answering the claims of intelligent-design boosters not with clear-eyed scientific empiricism but with sneering, finger-in-the-eye atheism. Biologist P.Z. Myers, for example, tells Stein that religion ought to be seen as little more than a soothing pastime, a bit like knitting. Books such as Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion often read like pure taunting, as when Hitchens pettily and pointedly types God as lowercase god. Tautology as typography is not the stuff of deep thought. Neither, alas, is Expelled.

It gives too much credit to ID claims, no question. And the author seems not to understand why the sneering at IDists and their unrelenting lies has to happen. The science side would look like fools (and find the situation intolerable) if they were to treat every repetition of every cheap shot by the creos/IDists as if it were some grand and telling objection to a theory that long ago answered most such objections (while those not answered are the usual sorts known in ongoing scientific programs).

It's not an ideal article at all, then, but at least the bizarre claims by Stein & co. are highlighted.

Also, if you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and listen to the roundtable discussion with Mathis and the Scientific American staffers. It's very entertaining. Mathis comes across as a ignorant, vile rube.

Under normal conditions I believe Mr. Dawkins would have mounted a much more vigorous and competitive argument. But he had just watched EXPELLED, a well-crafted film that exposes how he and others have unethically used science to advance their personal philosophy. He was a wounded opponent when I faced him, which put him at a considerable disadvantage. By the time I explained to him that his devotion to Atheism created a blind spot in his thinking he must have been in shock at all that had transpired in the previous two hours.

(Emphasis Mine)This reminds me of this clip from The Simpsons (skip to 8:55).

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Poor PZ missed all the excitement in Minnesota, standing in the Mall of America, alternately peeping through the glass windows at the theater, then racing back to the Apple Store to blog to his followers, all the while excitedly anticipating hearing all the wonderful details. In the end, PZ’s dignity may be bruised (don’t let all the fire-breathing bluster fool you) but he still has his job. Unfortunately, victims of scientific witch-hunts can’t say the same.

(Emphasis Mine)Wow, now that's what I call revisionist history. This guy could give David Barton a run for his money.

Time has reported on Expelled, and PZ gets a mention, if not a very favorable one:

I’ve been withholding this comment, but that seems like the proper segue.

Just personal opinion here, but I do think, of all the interviews from Expelled that I have seen, PZ comes off the worst. It's strange--as always there is the evidence that his bulldog demeanor is an internet persona. However his soft-spoken, reasoned answers came off as ice-water-in-the-veins chilling. With that and some poor word choices he came across to me, intentionally or not, as the quintessentially dry, humorless and soulless scientist.

--------------Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. --Sam Harris

The article is in Newsweek, so what do you expect? I think its summation is fine. Sure, it takes shots at PZ, et al. As its author states, “Truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to [vebally] murder one another is the simple fact of being human.” That’s going to happen (and in the article it strikes me as a rhetorical gesture), but the article still dismisses intelligent design, and its criticisms of Stein are amusing.

People are going to have, and are entitled to, their opinions about personalities, as Heddle does. It’s an opinion. What I really care about is the science (and lack of it), and this bathroom-visit-length blurb in Newsweek isn’t flattering to Expelled. That’s all I can ask for. Newsweek is not the stuff of deep thought, either.

*edit - duh, Time Magazine, not Newsweek. I do confuse the two a lot. Erf-derr, Kristine*

--------------Which came first: the shimmy, or the hip?

AtBC Poet Laureate

"I happen to think that this prerequisite criterion of empirical evidence is itself not empirical." - Clive

It seems you are mistaken. NFC stands for Nature Favours Christianity. The argument is related to those that support the view that gravity is at precisely the right strength to prevent missionaries in less fortunate lands from falling off.

NFC relies on the non-materialist doctrine of copywrong. This permits gene duplications to occur without increase of information. Legally, it is quite interesting. Simply put, the fee-simple copyholder can claim in rem that a non-repudiatory rescission is moot, given that the locus standi of notice parties at the interlocutory stage of interrogatories vitiates quasi-judicial application of the equitable doctrine of estoppel. Of course, this leaves open the availability of a plea in laches (subject to novation by the interceding party). But I'm sure you knew that.

However his soft-spoken, reasoned answers came off as ice-water-in-the-veins chilling. With that and some poor word choices he came across to me, intentionally or not, as the quintessentially dry, humorless and soulless scientist.

Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau (July 14, 1816 — October 13, 1882) was a French aristocrat, novelist and man of letters who became famous for developing the racialist theory of the Aryan master race in his book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-1855). De Gobineau is credited as being the father of modern racial demography.

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Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (published 1859)

Though I risk running afoul of the mean and ugly moderators of this site, here you go Kevin:

I'm not even seeing the image.

--------------Lou FCD is still in school, so we should only count him as a baby biologist. -carlsonjok -deprecatedI think I might love you. Don't tell Deadman -Wolfhound

Biologist P.Z. Myers, for example, tells Stein that religion ought to be seen as little more than a soothing pastime, a bit like knitting.

I object to the comparison of knitting and religion.

Knitting is useful.

On topic, I'm really torn about this film. It's planned to open at three theatres in my area (including our superduperultramegaplexmultiscreen), and I know it will probably get a big first Sunday rush of churchgoers, so I feel like I should check it out, just for the sake of knowing my enemy.

On the other hand, I don't care for Ben Stein, or Nazis, or feeling like I've wasted bucks on a bad movie.

And now they've dragged knitting into it..... I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain my status as 'official local fiber whacko who knits in public' if I don't go see it after that.

I'm not sure if I should blame PZ or Stein for this one.

edited: for spelling. Not to flash my editiorial power, really.

--------------Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood. - Shakespeare (reputedly)

On topic, I'm really torn about this film. It's planned to open at three theatres in my area (including our superduperultramegaplexmultiscreen), and I know it will probably get a big first Sunday rush of churchgoers, so I feel like I should check it out, just for the sake of knowing my enemy.

On the other hand, I don't care for Ben Stein, or Nazis, or feeling like I've wasted bucks on a bad movie.

And now they've dragged knitting into it..... I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain my status as 'official local fiber whacko who knits in public' if I don't go see it after that.

I'm not sure if I should blame PZ or Stein for this one.

edited: for spelling. Not to flash my editiorial power, really.

Don't forget that the proceeds will, in all likelihood, be going to XVIVO, and hence you'll be helping finance more cell-biology films for the next generation of cretards to stealcopy be inspired by.

--------------Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"... Â The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

Biologist P.Z. Myers, for example, tells Stein that religion ought to be seen as little more than a soothing pastime, a bit like knitting.

I object to the comparison of knitting and religion.

Knitting is useful.

On topic, I'm really torn about this film. It's planned to open at three theatres in my area

What is your area? Sounds like it's hardly showing anywhere outside the Old Confederacy.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Discovery will be fun. People, under oath, will have to explain "how they got there".

Yes, sounds like. By the way, I always wondered why the chose to be called Discovery Institute, since they don't actually try to discover anything. I now realize they were always planning to get all their internal documents subpoenaed on a regular basis.

Discovery will be fun. People, under oath, will have to explain "how they got there".

Yes, sounds like. By the way, I always wondered why the chose to be called Discovery Institute, since they don't actually try to discover anything. I now realize they were always planning to get all their internal documents subpoenaed on a regular basis.